The air shimmered as they crossed the threshold.
One moment, they were in Velmire's winding streets. The next—they stood in a field of broken machines and ticking bones. Towering, rust-covered automata lay shattered across black soil. Clock faces stared blankly into the stormy sky. This was no battlefield. It was a burial ground.
Lira shivered. "This isn't part of the map."
"It's not supposed to be," Aurelle murmured. "This is a bleed zone. A rift where past and future collapse inward."
Kade walked ahead, drawn by something unseen. Every step crunched over gears and bones. The ticking sounds weren't from the ruins—they echoed from inside him.
"I've been here before…" he said quietly.
Aurelle's brow furrowed. "Impossible. The Graveyard exists outside the flow. Only those bound to Temporal Echoes can—"
She stopped.
"Kade," Lira said, "What are you hearing?"
He didn't answer.
His breath quickened. His heartbeat synchronized with the ticking.
And then he saw it.
A boy—no older than nine—sat hunched over a broken time engine, weeping.
Black veins crawled across his face. His shadow twisted wrong.
Kade's eyes widened. "That's… me."
The child turned.
And smiled.
"Welcome back, Kade."
Lira drew her staff. "Is this a memory?"
Aurelle's hand hovered near her frost glyphs. "No. It's worse."
The child stood, eyes empty. "You left me here to rot. To forget."
Kade stepped back. "You're not me."
"Oh, I am," the boy said. "I'm the moment you buried. The one they made you forget."
The clockwork around them began to move—reassembling into mechanical beasts with red glowing eyes.
"This is the price of remembering," the boy whispered. "The Gravekeeper demands a toll."
The sky cracked open.
From above descended a creature of brass wings and molten glass—a being of impossible size and twisted elegance.
"The Gravekeeper," Aurelle said, breathless. "Guardian of broken timelines."
It landed with a sound like collapsing centuries.
Its voice boomed: "You who bear the shard—answer me."
Kade's throat tightened. "Answer what?"
"Who killed you the first time?"
Silence.
Kade's knees shook.
He didn't know.
Lira whispered, "Don't speak. This is a trap."
But Kade stepped forward.
"...I want to remember."
The child version of himself smiled wider. "Then suffer."
The Gravekeeper raised a staff made of fractured time.
The world inverted.
---
Inside Kade's mind…
He was falling. No—drowning in memories.
A flash of red hair. A burning village. A woman screaming.
A name on fire: "El—"
Static. Silence.
Then… a tower made of chains.
A hand reaching for him.
A voice.
"Find me… before they do."
Kade gasped, returning to the Graveyard, body wracked with pain. Blood ran from his nose.
The Gravekeeper loomed.
"You touched a sealed memory," it said. "One tied to the First Shard. You should not be able to access it."
"I don't care," Kade growled. "I need to know who I am."
The Gravekeeper leaned closer. "Very well."
Its hand touched Kade's chest.
Pain exploded through his body.
Gears spun in reverse.
Light surged—
And suddenly, he remembered the face of the person who killed him.
Not a stranger.
Not an enemy.
But someone he had trusted.
Someone still alive.
Kade collapsed.
The Gravekeeper rose, wings spreading.
"Trial passed," it said.
And then it vanished, taking the ghost child and the Graveyard with it.
---
Velmire – hours later
Kade awoke beside a fire. Lira sat near him, eyes shadowed. Aurelle stood, arms crossed.
"You were out for three hours," Aurelle said. "Your glyphs surged and nearly ripped open a paradox gate."
Kade sat up slowly. "I remember something."
Lira leaned forward. "What?"
He looked at her.
Looked through her.
"I was betrayed."
They went silent.
"…By who?" Aurelle asked.
Kade's eyes burned.
"I don't know their name. But I saw their face. They were one of us."
Aurelle's expression changed.
Subtly.
Almost too fast to catch.
Kade continued. "And they're still hunting the shards."
Lira's face paled. "Then we need to move faster."
"No," Kade said, rising to his feet.
"They'll come to me."
---
Meanwhile…
Far from Velmire, in a citadel carved into the bones of a time-dragon, a figure knelt before a throne of eyes.
A voice whispered: "He remembers."
The kneeling figure raised their hood.
A face was revealed—the same as one Kade had just seen in his vision.
And they smiled.
"Then we're almost ready."
---
End of Chapter 17